Commercials suck...
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
The call center is still up to its old tricks of sending people home early. They are still hiring though. Makes sense right?

I have been distressed lately by the commercials with the voice overs of a guy that sounds bored. You know what I mean it is some monotone guy talking about things geared for guys. The new burger at Carl's Jr. or the great new flavorful lite beer.... "with out us most guys would starve." I hate that guy. In fact when ever I hear that guy present an ad I block the item from my memory. I have decided that I do not need to be told about something by a guy that is paid to sound like he is teaching high school algebra and all he can do is read from the text. I don't understand why advertisers are reverting to stereotypes and the worst aspects in humans to present new ideas. Just because I am a guy does not mean I can't cook. In fact I can cook and when I have people over I like to cook for them. I am actually pretty damn good at it. So what is with the insults from a fast food joint? I also notice that I, being a man, can not shop on my own or I will not know what to buy. Apparently I need to get a woman because only then will I be able to figure out a shopping list.

It is not just men that get insulted. I have seen ads aimed at kids where they portray parents as uninteresting and horrible people and somebody to disreguard. As long as you drink their bottle water you will be able to ignore your parents and everything will be ok.

I know women get it to. The whole idea that every cleaning product is a woman's best friend or that everyonce in a while you should get a break from cooking. Implying that normally you should be cooking..... Even worse the advertisers imply that only women are interested in or are in need of dieting products.

I don't get it... some of these ideas and labels are so 1950's. What is the deal, have we regressed?

Washington..... it looks just like Oregon....
Mood:  spacey
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
I transversed Washington today. We started at 8 AM and I just arrived home 10 minutes ago at 10 PM. We started out by heading North and West to Aberdeen. It is the home of the Star Wars Store. Somebody in Aberdeen has a store that only sells Star Wars related items. They had posted hours of 4 PM to 7 PM and a piece of paper at the top left side of the sign that said "Hours for this week". So apparently it can change depending on the shop owner's mood. In the bottom left corner another piece of paper was attached that said "Out of town guests can call him if they find the store unopened during their visit" and his number appeared there. After that bit of excitement it was on to the exciting town of Shelton. There is nothing in Shelton as far as I could tell it was the town consisted of a couple shops along the freeway that were real hard to get to. From there we headed further North to Port Orchard. Nothing to report about Port Orchard either....

After the Port Orchard stop the day was essentially done except for the drive home. We were across the bay from Seattle and Jason knew of a great burger joint. We were famished because it had been since breakfast since the three compadres had eaten. We had two choices we could drive down to Tacoma and back up to Seattle or we could hop a car ferry to Seattle. We chose the latter. It was 14 bucks to take your car from the town of Bremmerton to Seattle and when we got there we had an hour to kill. We decided to take a walk around the town of Bremmerton which seems to be all garages and empty buildings. I think there was like 20 stores in an area filled with empty office buildings. It was bizarre. They also had the Puget Sound Naval Ship yards there so maybe one day I will go back and tour some of those ships. I think that is something you can do in Bremmerton. The only thing from what I could tell. Finally it was time to board the Ferry and that was entertaining. I never knew those ferries could hold so many vehicles. I spent most of the trip in the car because I did not have a jacket to break the bitingly cold wind. I did get out and head up top and decided that the ferry ride was something I would love to do again with the right type of clothes. I was a little disappointed that no movie moments happened like the overboard horse in the Ring or the last minute motorcycle jump as the ferry pulls away from every single movie that has a ferry in it ever made.

Seattle was a little different then what I think of when I think North West. They had all the grungy weird people and the punkers but the city looked like it was trying to emulate a bigger city from the East. It couldn't pull it off with all the people strolling around in sandals. The parking situation was awful. I thought downtown Portland was abhorrent but Seattle seemed worse. We needed to hit the bank for our burger joint and we found both banks kitty cornered at one light. We spent 10 minutes looking for a spot neither place had bank customer parking and all the streets had either a no parking sign or they were full. We finally found a spot and then we headed off to the burger joint. The place is called Dick's drive in. They have good prices and great burgers. I was told to get 2 of Dick's deluxes (2 patty cheeseburger with the fixings) but I decided one was fine and ended up having to wait in line twice. Then I decided I wanted a shake and got back in line a third time. It was great and I recommend hitting that place up if you ever find yourself wondering about in Seattle. This place was on Broadway and it actually had lots of customer parking unlike the bank. The thing I found most interesting was the bags they gave you were employment ads for Dick's. It was amazing to read the bag to tell you the truth. They were geared at recent high school graduates promising that if they worked full time during summer and part time (at least 20 hours) during the school year that Dick's would help pay tuition to the college of their choice. The first year they would pay up to $2500 per semester and I think the next year of employment they would pay 5k per semester. All they had to do was be a graduate from the 2006 class with proof of graduation, apply for the program and get hired before July, work full time the whole summer and part time during the school year and they would pay that. On top of that Dick's pays 8.75 per hour starting plus 1005 of benefits as long as you work 24 hours minimum a week. This was an amazing offer and all three of us were floored. We are talking about a fast food burger joint here! My recommendation is to move here if you have kids before their senior year and force them to work at Dick's when they graduate high school. Am I the only one amazed by that?

Then we headed home and hit delay after delay. I am so glad to be home. I am saying good night because the call center starts at 5 AM.

A Day of Telephonic Blitz
Mood:  special
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
Today I went to Vancouver and I set up shop making calls to people and trying to get them to allow me in their office. I had about a 10% success rate which was better then my walk in success rate which is like 2%. I called people and tried to hang out on the phone as long as possible with the goal of being able to stop in and say hi. I ended up going to both places I had a favorable response from, gave them some information and left with a promise to darken their doorway again in the future. Time for an evil laugh MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

I stupidly called a place in Newburg which is way South and West of where I live and ended up adding about 90 miles to my mileage totals for the year. Time for a cry of distress BOOHOOHOOHOO!!

Anyways tomorrow I am headed into the uncharted country of Washington and I will witness a few employee presentations first hand. I am also filing my Washington license along the way.

In the other insurance world known as Action Insurance I just got a writing number with the second of the 5 insurers. I also recieved word that several leads will be headed my way next week.

Things are starting to slowly roll forward. In the meantime I am selling cds, dvds, and books in hopes of making some bills get paid this month. Damn the lack of work at the call center! Wish me luck!

The world gone mad.....
Mood:  sharp
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
I recently wrote about my dad and Maryjo in an email newsletter I sent out to you all. I talked about the two crazy kids and their new acquisition the chickens.... I even demanded a picture from them. It was to no avail of course. The problem is that I was asking old people to do things that railed against their ancient natures! First I asked them to remember to take a picture. I mean come on they can't even remember where they parked the car when they are at home! Then I actually expected them to be able to use their 200 dollar digital camera.... the same one they took all the great shots with in Italy that noone has ever seen..... Then I asked them to email me the pictures.... it was an impossible task and one that I have a slim hope of ever seeing realized unless I go there and do it myself but with the price of gas and my current lack of fundage I will not be making that trip anytime soon. SO the picture of the chickens will go unfulfilled and the old people will live their life feeding chickens, Stewey and the horse.

What? Wait you didn't know they got a horse? That was so last weekend! Where have you been? Anyways they got a horse.... back to the chickens.

I am not even sure what the chickens Barbie and Q look like... I have never seen a picture of them.

What is it with you and the horse? Yes they got a horse! I am trying to pontificate on chickens!

Ok fine. Last weekend they got a horse. The horse is older and apparently used to be a show pony.... No wild mustang like they originally had plans to get. This horse is trained and is still in good riding shape. It goes by the name of Starlight and I believe whenever I get a picture of Barbie & Q I will get a picture of the horsey. Unfortunately the same facts I discussed earlier about them being to old to operate the camera and remember to take the picture still apply. You might have to fly out here to see this horse and the chickens. It probably would be faster to do that then to wait for me to get some cash flow or for my dad to remember the pictures.

Happy Father's Day
Mood:  lazy
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
Hello all I hope you have done something for your pops because without him and your mom getting jiggy you would not be you. Now that that slightly offensive reminder is out of the way I want to drop a quick note.


Yesterday I had a wonderful visit with Aunt Wanda and Uncle Don. After work we got together and hit the mall, Olive garden and Mervyns where they bought me some awesome flip flops!

I haven't been able to stop putting them on the minute I get home. They are nice and cushy I highly recommend these flip flops to everyone! Anyways they are doing well and it was fun getting caught back up. We talked about grandpa and his wheelchair's wheel replacement that according to the repair shop was supposedly no longer available. Within 5 minutes of looking on the internet Uncle Don found a place in Bend, Oregon. Apparently about that time the shop decided to actually look and found one in Florida as well. For a tire that is no longer made it sure does seem awfully available. Someone must have had a scheme going....

Anyway that is all for today!

Hey Sun! Go down already!
Mood:  smelly
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
One of the things I have noticed about the NorthWest is that the sun never goes down.... ok that's an exaggeration it goes down but it is so late! Right now it is 9:23 PM at night and it is still working on setting! I am trying to go to bed and the sun is in my eyes! What is up!? I mean who would ever have thought that my bedtime would be before the neighbors' kids? Seriously they are out there right now running around and laughing! In fact they knocked on my door and made fun of me for being a big stupid baby head. I of course replied by exclaiming "nuh-uh!" and they said "nuh-huh!" and I called them a dumb dodo poop face and ran away crying.

Stupid neighbors' kids!

I am so not a big stupid baby head!

Marketing sucks!
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
At the current moment my chosen career hinges on one important detail and that is marketing. All of it is cold marketing meaning I introduce myself and try to get them to listen long enough to set another appointment. There are various methods to this form of marketing the face to face intro and the phone marketing. The face to face has several approaches: the direct approach in which your whole goal is to talk to the person in charge and set an appointment, the corporate drop where you go buy drop off information and if you can meet the head person cool if not thats fine you get a name and a number and call them the next day. The phone is basically a bucking bronco you try to get in and hang on long enough to get permission to bring information by. I have not done any phone marketing as of yet but I think I am ready to try it. In my travels I have found the face to face go great for me if I have a partner but the minute I try by myself I tend to allow myself to skip places and when I fail too often I allow myself to call it a day. I need to figure out how to overcome that and one of the ways I am thinking about trying is by making calls asking if I can drop by the next day while I am in the area. I figure this will help me stop feeling like I am not invited which is one of my hang ups. I figured with as much sales experience under my belt this would be something I could overcome but I have found it is not so. I allow the newness of face to face interaction to discourage me before I even begin. I have tried pep talks but it's not really working.

So I talked to my mentor and he said he will try to come up with some more clearly defined rules or plans to follow for me to get started and get comfortable doing this for the rest of my life. He also said we would set a day to do a 3 - 4 hour blitz of phone calls so I can see how he does that. In the meantime I am doing online courses to better familiarize myself with the products I offer because that is essential to building my confidence. I need to know how to respond if I get a question adn until I started doing the online courses I was a little lost the brochures they had out are hard for me to pay attention to. Knowing I will be tested helps me learn better and also helps me identify key areas to know a little better. Things are starting to get better in that part of my life, now all I need is for the call center to hang onto me a bit longer. At least long enough to start making sales witht he insurance side.

I had a bit of good news the Oregon department of insurance finally made my affiliation with Action Insurance official and I will be getting my own logins soon for the 4 insurers I do not have yet. If you reside in Oregon you maybe getting a call about a quote and hopefully I can save you some money. To all the Phoenicians it will be a little bit before I can afford my AZ license and when I do I will be giving you a ring as well.

Anyways drop me a line and let me know about your world. crazedlunatik@gmail.com

Ps. Father's Day is June 18th!!!! DO your shopping at my store! Http://www.cafepress.com/cldholiday

Things will work out, they always do...
Mood:  hug me
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
Well three days of training and I am back in the world of 5 AM calls from people needing their phones cut back on. Damn phone companies always cutting 'dees bidnes ownas phones off'. Unspeakable really. I mean why should they have to pay for using the phone I mean c'mon they are bidnes ownas!

I can't wait! I am so looking forward to being at work at 5am!! Woohoo! I love making nothing per hour it's awesome!

I learned a lot in the classes I was in. Like, most of the people only do AFLAC. They don't have a part time job and they are making money that way. I think the fact that they have to make money is a huge part of it. I wish I could do that but I am in a monetary situation where I am focused on paying last weeks bills and can't even face opening the mail box without freaking out. I am not sure if these people have a working spouse or if they actually had some money saved up because I couldn't even fathom leaving work before I had a few sales in the can. I also think that I am allowing this part time job to trip me up. I think I allow it to be an excuse for why I am not getting it done. It is a challenge but it is something I need to learn to work around. I need something that is guaranteed to keep coming in as long as I keep showing up until I can get some money rolling in from the thing that will end up absorbing every ounce of free time. It's free time wasted anyway.

I have learned that I really need to dedicate my week day to Aflac from 8 until 5. I think what I really need to do is to stop working morning hours at the dead end callcenter job and request a schedule change from the 5 am to whenever to the 5pm to 10 or 6 to 10. I hate the idea but it really is only temporary. I have said that I viewed jobs as temporary before but this time I already have my next big thing sitting in my lap. I never had that before. I was always confused about the next move professing wishes to be a journalist, a teacher, a peace corp volunteer.... anything that seemed like I might have a future with or that might keep me interested past the faked interview excitement I have been on autopilot for years and it is scarier then hell to turn that autopilot off and actually commit to something.

I think I need to work weekends and evenings at my part time gig and I need to focus on insurance the rest of the time. I will be filling out the schedule change request forms tomorrow. I am a little worried that the callcenter job will not work with me on that. The company I work for is a staffing agency and as far as I can tell they just keep you on for 90 days and I am getting real close to that time frame. At 90 days you either get the axe or you get hired by the company they staff from what I've heard but that probably should be taken with a grain of salt considering the accuracy of office gossip. I am highly doubtful that I will stay employed if that is true. I guess that this is a problem I need to stop worrying about until it happens. I am just wasting brainspace. When I am put in that position I will just let Jason (my district coordinator and trainer) know that I need to make dough and I need to make it fast and then I will become like glue and he won't be able to have a bowl of raisin bran without me there. I need to focus on making what I have in front of me at this moment work. SO making my crap job schedule less of a hindrance is the goal. The company either will work with me or it won't and until either happens all I can do is ask.


I keep telling myself things will work out because they always do......

Things will work out they always do....

A Quick Walk in The Park
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
Have you ever had to stop, pause and reevaluate. I tend to do that every couple months. Just stop and look at where I am, where I've been and where I am going. I just went through that. My bank accounts are empty and I am working under 20 hours a week at a job that gives me a paycheck for showing up. I can see that this train is headed for the poorhouse. On the other side I have a new career I am trying to launch. With all sorts of possibilities, if I can ever get this thing off the ground. What I see around me is alarming and promising. I am completely overwhelmed with the drama going on in my life and as a result my energies have been sapped. Unfortunately I have let one outlet slide recently and that is my writing. I am not promising to get back to writing a blog entry every day like I was for a while but I am promising to get on here more then twice a week. When I least feel like writing is probably when I need to do so the most. I find that when I am not writing I am shrinking back into my cave. Never leaving the apartment, always feeling trapped, and headed toward running away to Mexico moment. I can't afford the run to Mexico. I would run out of money between my apartment and my car. So I better get back to writing. That being said......

I went for a walk today in an effort to not slowly melt into my La-Z-Boy chair. When you need to dig yourself out you know you have watched too many hours of nonsense. In fact I found myself watching MTV today. That scared me and I immediately went for a walk. Unfortunately the park, my intended destination, was closed due to construction.

So my walk was a little shorter then I expected. I found a stack of wood and I couldn't resist taking a picture of it.

I can just imagine someone saying "Why is this wood all bent!"

So I headed to the rose garden and took mucho pictures! The roses are in full bloom which reminds me that this weekend I should head to the Portland Rose Garden. I made a collage of the pictures just to give you a brief look at the rose haven.

I talked about the plane eating tree and I wanted to show the plane that survived the plane eating tree.... survive is a loose term......

Finally I wanted to leave this picture of me and my birthday shirt.... courtesy of Maryann.

That is it for today....

My Weekend and the Contest Winner
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Trick Daddy - I'm A Thug
Topic: One Ramblin' Ranter!
I had a good weekend.... Did you guys? I certainly hope so. My dad and I were only slightly hampered by my work schedule. We saw a movie, went to a few bookstores, hit up Dim Sum, Fuddruckers, Sweet Tomatoes and a nearby breakfast joint. We barbecued steaks and I made a chicken dinner. We ate chips, cookies, candy bars, guzzled soda, a 7&7 and a beer. We watched bad scifi flicks, some Mythbusters, Doctor Who and some Fosters. It was a grand time.

This week has started out pretty good. In insurance news. I sold a home insurance policy! I signed my first account up for Aflac and I hope to sell them some products soon.

In CLD.com news. I received the stickers I ordered a while back. I have 250 stickers which means all I need is your address! Give me your address and get some free stickers!! Email me at: CrazedLunatik@gmail.com Please include your address and the quantity requested. This is at absolutely no cost to you. Which means you can give them out as housewarming gifts, birthday gifts and anniversary gifts! You will be so popular!


The contest: I had a few entries and I have narrowed it down to two. I promised a name today so I will give you one...... here are the two contenders:

Robert W submitted this:
Here lies "Mr. Obvious"... He "obviously" missed the "No Pedestrians" sign on the freeway.

and Kevin wrote this:
"the view sucks from down here."

So who won? Robert is the winner and Kevin is the runner up. Robert let me know what shirt size you wear. Thanks for the entries. Keep your eyes out for the June contest. Did I choose right? Let me know by posting a comment.

What did Robert get? A Crazed Lunatik Design Value shirt. Kevin as a runner up will be receiving Stewey Button.